MR. Lightstone . . . Polish style
Proze (Prozhe as in the Zh of gezhe)

It was Mordechai Lightstone's Brithday yesterday -as I'm sure you all know and have already sent out you gifts- and we made a Farbrengen last night with R' Zalmen Stambler.
Among other things that were said I'll mention one:
We arrived Parshas Noach -where Hashem tells Noach "Tzei min hateiva" ("Go out of the ark"). That we did, we left yeshiva, as it were, to go on shlichus and become "involved" in the world -tzu tun mit nach a Yidden. If so, fregt zich the sha'alo, what more do I need tgo do? I went out, I went on a shlichus -Ich bin shoin gantz. That's why it's parshas Lech Lecha, we need to go deeper, to leave our habbits, to be ibergegeben tzum Rebben -an eved's whole goal is to give nachas to his master.

The Farbrengen is underway

The cake that Sholom Ber got me



We went to (Jewish) Cemetery yesterday, it's only a few minutes away from us, but it feels like it's years back in time.
The Germans left it (almost) untouched, Izhe explained, the two of the most probable reasons being that either they wanted to save it for their (in)famous "Museum . . ." or that they wanted to show the world that they weren't so bad -why hey, they left the world famous Warsaw Cemetery in tact.
The place is huge, there are around 250,000 people buried their -that's a quarter of a million! It's relatively new as cemeteries go, only about 200 years old, but in it rest many famous people.

list of names of Tzaddikim interred here including Reb. Chaim Brisker, the son of the Apter Rav and more.

mass grave memorial

The site of the mass graves from Ghetto sent chills down my spine. There were so many people dieing that there was no time for them to be buried properly, therefore they were put in a large mass grave, there are approx. 10,000 people there! Hashem yekum Damum

17 bones of people who died in the Ghetto found at some later date and brought to "kever Yisroel"